Mild Panic Creeping In

I'm still not studying. I've started feeling that little fluttery tightness in my chest that means the procrastination has gone on too long, that if I don't suit up and start working this mild panic will turn into a major freakout and I'll be mired in self-loathing and dread and completely unable to function.

And I'm really cold. When I poked my nose out of bed this morning it was to find that the indoor temperature had fallen to 38 degrees while I slept in my very warm down cocoon. I've had the fire roaring for about three hours which has gotten the temperature up to . . . 45. Not exactly balmy. Temps like these make me really miss the snow. When it's snowing, it's not this FUCKING COLD. (Have you noticed the patterns of my posts? I have: weather, weather, ohmyfreakinggodwhatamigoingtodowithmylife, weather, weather, procrastination, procrastination, weather, ohmyfreakinggodwhatamigoingtodowithmylife. Sorry I'm so boring. At least this post will hit the trifecta.)

I was google chatting with a friend this morning who suggested I send her my resume and she could try and get me a job with her employer in [a suburb of] Chicago. And I'm thinking about it. Yes, I said I wanted to stay in Idaho, and yes, I'm about to take the Idaho bar. But . . . I LOVE Chicago, and I love my friend who lives in Chicago, and I'm really fucking COLD and I'm weak, and I haven't gone skiing once this winter, and I went hiking about twice this summer so who the hell am I kidding with this mountain girl shit, and the thought of looking for a job sends me into a blind panic, and a year after leaving DC I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up (since lady of leisure is not looking to be a viable long-term option) so why the hell not commute from city to suburb to work in-house for a huge corporation? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have to keep track of billable hours.

Second Verse, Same as the First

I think the whole BarBri iPod thing is finally straightened out (yes, I did knock on wood when I said that). Apparently in BarBri world "Civil Procedure" is the same thing as "Federal Jurisdiction" which . . . no. Not the same. Don't put "Civil Procedure" on the study schedule and then give me "Federal Jurisdiction" materials and expect me not to flip the fuck out after sending me two iPods in a row that are wrong. But whatever, it really is irrelevant since I haven't studied since Saturday. I just can't make myself. And it's not like I'm out skiing or sitting in a bar drinking or playing with my niece and nephew or doing something else fun. I read Gossip Girl (which is really horribly written and covers about the same time frame as the pilot of the television series and I couldn't put it down) and ran errands in Boise and watched Season 2 of The West Wing. It's just like I'm back in law school, or college, or at work putting off a big assignment. Life doesn't change.

Maybe this is a sign I really should give up on that whole law thing after all

I am now on my THIRD iPod of BarBri lectures (the second one they sent me, to replace a few incorrect lectures on the first iPod, was completely wrong and had lectures for like Louisiana or something) and I just discovered that the most recent iPod, the one that allegedly corrects all the errors of iPods past, doesn't contain a CivPro lecture. Why are they fucking with me? WHY!?!?!

Say all you want about the post office

but sometimes it's just amazing. Today I got a belated holiday card (in my P.O. box) mailed from Central America and addressed as follows:

[My Name]
[Road That Intersects with the Road I Actually Live On, To Neither of Which Roads Is Mail Delivered]
Donnelly, Idaho [Wrong Zip Code]

Something you don't want to hear while studying for the bar:

"During the process of specially formatting the Idaho iPods there was a glitch in the system, causing the wrong lectures to be downloaded onto your iPod."

1984

This fall, my mom did a little excavating in her storage unit and gave me some of her old winter gear. I've been wearing her wonderfully warm down jacket for months as my designated wood gathering wear, but hadn't really looked at the rest until today. Today I put on the full kit and spent half an hour shoveling snow and bringing in wood. Picture it, me in a scene from 1984:

Coat: imagine a simple western-wear shirt (gray and blue and complete with mother of pearl snaps) in hip-length down jacket form.

Pants: Skin tight (on me, because I'm larger than my mother was at my age. sigh.) navy blue bib overalls with suede patches on the inside cuffs.

Accessories: These were partly my own, a rainbow striped beanie, black snow boots, and my mother's old thick fingered grey leather gloves.

I remember my mother here, doing these things, wearing these clothes, and now I'm here, doing these things, wearing these clothes. It sort of befuddled me a little. But I liked it. A lot. I think my mom is amazing, has done amazing things, and I like walking in her overalls for awhile.

(As a side note, is it strange that I actually looked forward to shoveling snow as a study break? That's strange right?)

Stormy

I jumped ship early at the spa yesterday. It started snowing and blowing around noon, and I kept hearing sirens all afternoon. In a town as small as McCall, that spells really bad roads. So I closed up shop a little after 4 so I could get home before dark. It was really warm (in the low 30s), which made the roads even worse, a slushy slippery mess. I had a death grip on the wheel until I pulled safely into my carport a little over an hour later.

I had trouble sleeping last night, the wind howling around the house and the hail on the tin roof sounded lovely and dramatic, but was not soothing.

I have no plans to leave the house (well, no plans to go farther from my door than the wood shed at any rate) for the next few days. In case you were wondering, I've already fallen a little behind in the BarBri study schedule. I've been distracted by my DVDs of The West Wing's third season. That ends today.